Valve released notes on Dota 2's latest upcoming patch, 7.00, earlier today. The site originally crashed when the notes were first supposed to go live, but is now back up and running with full details on a list of extensive changes that will be coming to Valve’s free-to-play MOBA.

Did I say extensive? I meant massive!

Roshan, the giant neutral creep that teams fight over throughout each match for gold, experience, and the special item he bequeaths upon defeat, will be moving up river for instance. Heroes will also now have skill trees similar to League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm, as well as a backpack that holds extra items, as well as a new building type called the Altar that sits near each side’s secret shop. And did I mention there’s also a new hero?

Advertisement

It says something about patch 7.00 that the addition of a completely new character somehow seems like one of the smaller changes its bringing to Dota 2. The notes are broken up into four sections, including one for a new hero being introduced to the game, a redesign of the game’s HUD, changes to pre-game mechanics, as well as the usual changes to heroes, items, and the map that come with each new patch.

GIF

The new hero is called Monkey King, and he’s a melee type with escape and disable abilities who plays in the carry position.

His ultimate is called Wukong’s Command in which “Monkey King blows a tuft of fur onto the battlefield, summoning a formation of monkey soldiers to join him in the fight.” Along with the new hero, Valve is selling a special new Monkey King theme’d map overlay along with special Arcana skins for the new hero.

GIF

The rest of the game is also getting updates to its presentation and layout, however, with a new pre-match battle screen animation for example, and different selection screens. The notes state, “The new selection interface to match the hero gallery, you can use the common hero selection criteria, or enter the name to quickly find a specific hero, or click “random”, let fate to make decisions.”

And Valve says the game interface has been completely reproduced,

“Effectively controlling your hero while collecting the necessary information from the game world ensures that the team has the upper hand in the task of destroying the enemy relics. With the full re-version of the game interface debut, the optimized map view there are a variety of new ways to help players at a glance the details of each situation in the game.”

And of course, the core gameplay is going to see significant changes as well, including but not limited to, “Hero talent, backpack slot, a number of map changes, as well as a wide range of other gameplay adjustments, these new content will make the war remains no longer the same as before.”

The backpack allows heroes to carry an additional three items, either to keep on reserve or as a place to stash recipes and other materials while building toward a stronger end-game item.

The talent tree, on the other hand, gives each hero a special set of bonuses to be chosen from at different level intervals, “Heroes to 10/15/20/25 level can choose the hero talent, get a special attribute bonus or skill enhancement. Each level has a unique branch route, and the bypassed branch will not be selected later. Each hero has a unique set of talent to choose from.”

Many of people’s favorite heroes are also getting remodeled, including Viper, who will now look a little less like a floating green worm.

Advertisement

But even with all of these big changes, the meant and potatoes of any new update will be how each existing hero gets buffed or nerfed going forward. Here’s a brief list of what will be happening to people’s favorite heroes with 7.00:

Chaos Knight’s Chaos Strike now lifesteals for 50% when it crits. Illusions benefit from this as well and a scepter bonus reduces cooldown by 20 seconds and allows Phantoms to be cast on an allied hero.

Reworked Crystal Maiden Scepter so that it now applies Frost Bite to any unit that has been standing in the Freezing Field for over 2.5 seconds. An enemy can only be affected once.

Wall of Replica no longer deals damage when heroes walk through it but instead applies a 1-second 76% slow.

Dragon Knight’s Dragon Tail is now a fast projectile while in Dragon Form.

Elder Titan’s Natural Order now removes 40/60/80/100% of the base magic resistance, rather than a fixed amount.

Enigma’s Black Hole now slowly rotates enemy units as it pulls them into the center.

Lycan’s Feral Impulse no longer provides 15/20/25/30 Attack Speed.

Meepo clones now share full attributes without Scepter.

Necrophos’ Sadist replaced with a new ability, Ghost Shroud. Turns you Ethereal for 3/3.5/4/4.5 seconds and grants you a 600 AoE slow aura that reduces enemy movement speed by 12/20/28/36%. While you are in this form you take 20% more magic damage but any HP/MP you heal is amplified by 50%. Cooldown: 28/24/20/16

Added a Scepter for Riki. Increases ultimate duration by 4 seconds. Allows you to target an allied hero, hiding inside them for the duration. The radius that you attack in follows the allied hero. 1000 Cast Range.

Reworked Shadow Shaman’s Mass Serpent Wards Scepter. Now causes Serpent Wards to have a split shot, attacking two units each for full damage.

Treant Protector’s Nature’s Guise is now a passive ability. Whenever you are within 265 range of a tree for 6/5/4/3 seconds (without attacking), you gain invisibility and 16/22/28/34% movement speed bonus. When you attack out of invisibility, you bash the target for 1/1.4/1.8/2.2 seconds. Distance-to-tree check still has a 0.75 grace period before invisibility is removed. Your attack out of invisibility cannot miss. You can cast while invisible.

Reworked Zeus Scepter. Grants you a new ability, Nimbus, that creates a storm cloud anywhere on the map. The cloud casts Lightning Bolt automatically on a random enemy within 500 AoE once every 2.5 seconds (scales with cooldown reduction). Clouds last 50 seconds. Cooldown: 50, Mana cost: 275. Requires 8 hits from ranged heroes to kill (4 from melee heroes, 16 from non-heroes), and has a 100 gold bounty. Nimbus summon is a global cast range.

Basically, 7.00 adds Scepter bonuses to a bunch more heroes, or completely reworks existing ones, as well as some major shifts to heroes like Lycan and Treant Protector. The big changes, however, will be coming in the form of each hero’s new skill tree buffs, which will take some time and a few post-patch tournaments to really get a feel for.

The new patch is also symbolic, being revealed at the end of the year after a major tournament, it appears that 7.00 will be coming just in time to usher in 2017 and a new era for the game that will culminate in Valve’s The International 7 tournament for Dota 2 next summer.

You can find the complete list of changes coming with the 7.00 patch here.